Here at THE VINYL DISTRICTwe're good consumers. All Mp3's are posted to promote and give exposure to the music and are linked for a limited time. Please download to preview, then head promptly to your local vinyl vendor (or - OK, CD store too) and fork over your hard earned cash. You'll appreciate the piece of mind.

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Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Washington, DC (by way of Mexico City, Nicaragua, Sierra Leone, Cuba, and Venezuela) experimental/indie, singer/songwriter Peter Maybarduk releases his second CD "No Hay Pueblo Vencido" this month with a CD release party March 19 at Dahlak. Joining Maybarduk that night is an eclectic pool of talent culled from his travels both here in the States and abroad.

Yet, it seems that throughout his varied global excursions, one thing has remained a constant—his appreciation for...well, why not have him tell you?

"Music reconstructed the life inside my mind around the time I turned fourteen. In our town, those of us whose complete attention could not be held by school, religion or athletics were left to shuffle in the adolescent wilderness in a vague directionless search for meaning. We were considered, after all, too young to be entrusted with any real responsibilities. Music became the medium connecting my unquiet mind to the world around me, lending stability to and communicating with my creative and erratic thoughts.

Independent record stores were among the most tangible expressions of this world of ideas. They gave me a place to go to; a place to interact with music with all my senses. I could see artists’ visual interpretations of music on album covers and posters, I could talk with knowledgeable fans who worked in the shops and invariably played in local bands, I could smell vinyl and cardboard and leather and hair dye, and I could hold a disc or a record in my hand, bearing the art and music of a great band, and touch the otherwise intangible sounds that were coming to define me.

I think perhaps this is what a purely digital music world has trouble supplanting. The tactile. I can see album art on screens, but it’s far less satisfying – hard on the eyes, small, transient and set in just two dimensions. An online search is not the same memorable adventure as a trip to the record store, and our soul knows we have not equally earned the pleasure of music we discover online as we might have if we’d traveled to an independent shop and walked its aisles. Even for someone who might not appreciate vinyl’s unique sound, purely digital music cannot satisfy the other senses. And the senses do not work in pure isolation. Our experiences are deeper, richer, more rewarding, more informative, when they involve sound, sight, touch, conversation, physical exertion, memory. These experiences deepen our investment in music, and inevitably, lead us to give more back to the art in turn.

Similarly, there is, by definition, little creative interaction in the chain store. That’s not to criticize the individuals working in each store. And there is creativity somewhere in each chain’s corporate design template. But that creative process may have occurred hundreds of miles away and years in the past; there is likely no daily unique remaking of the individual store in which you’re standing. No personal creative link between the listener, the store, and the world of music, each remaking themselves with every day, considering music not only as commercial product, but as a very personal identity and art, that needs interaction to retain its meaning. This is what the independent stores offer. Each interacts with music on its own terms, through constant evolution, and hence, is a living part of the development of the art.

The musicians, the shows, the labels, the fans, the scenes, the zines, the shops, all interacting to make a rich world of ideas. That’s where I found meaning and bridged the unsteady period between childhood and adulthood. As music and technology evolve to offer new possibilities, and we make choices as listeners that will influence their course, let’s keep in mind the complete context – the creative and sensory experiences that have combined to help make music so powerful for us thus far."

Before we begin this morning, a few words to 99% of the audience at last night’s Fleetwood Mac concert at the Verizon Center:

Please. Just. Stop.(Thank you.)

...Steel Pulse!

“In the mid-'70s, this young British sextet from Birmingham — inspired into existence by Bob Marley's Catch a Fire — found an affinity with the righteous rebellion of white new wavers and built its early reputation largely by touring punk venues (as documented on live anthology records from Manchester's Electric Circus and London's Hope and Anchor). Steel Pulse's crossover appeal derives in large part from its young, modern thoughtfulness, but even more so from the group's incredible strength as one of the world's very best self-contained reggae units.

Steel Pulse's virtues include a gorgeous, multi-textured musical palette (especially on the first album and much of Caught You), intelligent lyrics (most notably on Handsworth Revolution, but also on Tribute to the Martyrs), a wondrous, sinuously propulsive beat and sweet lead vocals by (David Hinds), who also has a nice quasi-scat style."

Couldn’t have said it any better than the Trouser Press quotes above. Oh, wait—maybe I can: outside of The (original) Wailers — best reggae band ...ever?